OpenAI — OpenAI Grove
A five-week cohort program open to founders at any stage, including pre-idea and pre-product. Participants receive $50,000 in API credits, early access to unreleased tooling and hands-on mentorship from OpenAI staff. This is the largest OpenAI credit allocation a founder can reach without a VC or accelerator relationship, and it is competitive rather than automatic.
What you need to qualify
- Individual founders at any stage, from pre-idea to shipped product
- Application-based and selective
- Runs in fixed cohorts — check the current application window
Before you submit
- Company domain email, not a personal address
- Live public website that describes a product, not a coming-soon page
- Company profile findable on LinkedIn, X or GitHub
- Incorporation documents and funding evidence to hand
- Confirm the company has not claimed credits from this program before, under any entity
Other programs in this category
Three tiers. Start gives bootstrapped teams up to $2,000 in Google Cloud and Firebase credits, self-serve. Scale covers 100% of usage up to $100,000 in year one plus 20% of usage up to another $100,000 in year two. The AI-First tier adds up to $150,000 on top of Scale, reaching $350,000 total for teams whose core technology is AI.
The largest cloud credit program by ceiling. A small self-serve tier is open to any incorporated startup with a live product, while the six-figure tiers are routed through Activate Providers — accelerators, incubators, VCs and startup-friendly banks. Credits are redeemable on third-party models through Amazon Bedrock, and AWS lists additional credits for AI startups ready to scale.
Credits can be used across Azure, GitHub and other eligible Microsoft platforms, with the top of the range reserved for VC-backed companies coming in through Microsoft's investor network. The entry tier is genuinely self-serve and needs no funding, which makes this one of the few six-figure programs with a real bootstrapped on-ramp. The program also includes access to AI models and go-to-market support.